Chris Bradford on Austin, economics and other stuff

October 06, 2011

The City gets it right, sort of

A new city program would let neighborhoods apply to have parking meters installed on their streets. In exchange, the city would spend some of the revenue on improvements to the area, such as sidewalks, lighting, landscaping and bike lanes.

Obvious candidates would be neighborhoods near busy commercial corridors, such as South Congress Avenue or Guadalupe Street, that are regularly clogged with overflow parking by customers or students, said Steve Grassfield , the city's parking enterprise manager.

If the City Council OKs the program today , a neighborhood group near the University of Texas plans to apply to convert as many as half the free parking spaces in West Campus — 400 out of an estimated 800 — into metered or permitted spaces.

It is not a good idea, though, to retain the Residential Permit Parking Program. The RPPP is a horrible way to ration street parking because (1) it excludes drivers who might put a very high value on the parking spaces in favor of residents who might put a low value on them; and (2) it is a giveaway of public property to neighborhoods.

As long as RPPPs remain an option for neighborhoods, I imagine most will choose RPPPs over meters. From their perspective, merely getting a cut of meter revenue isn't enough; they must get enough revenue to compensate them for giving up the RPPP option. The Statesman article implies this is the case. Staff just announced the program, though, so we'll have to see whether they retain their skepticism.

Comments

A new city program would let neighborhoods apply to have parking meters installed on their streets. In exchange, the city would spend some of the revenue on improvements to the area, such as sidewalks, lighting, landscaping and bike lanes.

Obvious candidates would be neighborhoods near busy commercial corridors, such as South Congress Avenue or Guadalupe Street, that are regularly clogged with overflow parking by customers or students, said Steve Grassfield , the city's parking enterprise manager.

If the City Council OKs the program today , a neighborhood group near the University of Texas plans to apply to convert as many as half the free parking spaces in West Campus — 400 out of an estimated 800 — into metered or permitted spaces.

It is not a good idea, though, to retain the Residential Permit Parking Program. The RPPP is a horrible way to ration street parking because (1) it excludes drivers who might put a very high value on the parking spaces in favor of residents who might put a low value on them; and (2) it is a giveaway of public property to neighborhoods.

As long as RPPPs remain an option for neighborhoods, I imagine most will choose RPPPs over meters. From their perspective, merely getting a cut of meter revenue isn't enough; they must get enough revenue to compensate them for giving up the RPPP option. The Statesman article implies this is the case. Staff just announced the program, though, so we'll have to see whether they retain their skepticism.